Cuyler Presbyterian Church Photo by Kathy Howe, courtesy of New
York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

The former Cuyler Presbyterian Church is located in the Boerum Hill
neighborhood of northwestern Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. Designed by Staten
Island architect Edward A. Sargent, the building is an example of High Victorian
Eclectic design with elements of both Gothic and Romanesque styles of architecture.
The Cuyler Presbyterian Church began as an extension of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian
Church to support its growing programs. The chapel was built one-half mile away
from the Lafayette Church in the North Gowanus neighborhood (now called Boerum
Hill). In 1907, Lafayette Church concluded the Cuyler Chapel to be well led and
active, warranting its establishment as an independent organization: Cuyler Presbyterian
Church.

North elevation of former parsonage and the churchNational Register
photograph, by Martha Cooper

In 1926, Reverend David Munroe Cory, as the tenth pastor
of Cuyler Church, practiced an outspoken, activist ministry in the tradition established
by his predecessor, Rev. Dr. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler. His life-long labor activism
and involvement in politics well-suited him for a ministry in North Gowanus. When
he took the helm of Cuyler Church, many of his neighbors were of Irish and Italian
descent. In the 1930s, a new group of migrants arrived: American Indians, primarily
Iroquois, from the Mohawk reservations of Kahnawake and Akwesasne in Canada and
upstate New York. Attracted by New York City's great building boom fueled by Depression-era
public works and, later, the post-war economic revival, they came to find work
in the high steel industry helping to build New York City's modern cityscape.
First journeying back and forth between city and reservation, then bringing their
families to live with them in Brooklyn, the Mohawk ironworkers formed a new community
in the vicinity of Cuyler Church.

Reverend Cory welcomed the newcomers
to his church. He conducted his interactions with the new residents with a degree
of cultural sensitivity that was remarkable for his time. Learning their language
was only one of the ways he met his new congregants on their own terms. He also
translated religious readings into the Mohawk-Oneida dialect, and promoted the
reacquisition of Indian traditional culture, making the resources of the church
available to the native community for that purpose. Some native congregants participated
in leadership roles within the church and held periodic fundraising pageants on
its behalf. The Church also served as a community center where people would often
gather to hear news from home, tell stories, trade information, and hold cultural
events. In the mid-to-late 1950s, a combination of factors led numerous Mohawk
families to leave the North Gowanus enclave, including a lull in construction
that decreased employment. In 1955, Reverend Cory left Cuyler Presbyterian Church
and became pastor of Homecrest Presbyterian Church in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

The church was converted into residential use in the early 1980s. Although
changes were made to accommodate residential living space, the interior retains
sufficient integrity to convey its former function as a cornerstone of the Mohawk
community in Brooklyn.